Biala, Kathy (12/12/2022)

Katherine Nagasawa:

I'm going to just read a little bit, just to set the context. We're doing this for all of them. Today is December 12th, 2022 and this oral history is being recorded at 3012 Crescent Street in Marina, California. The interviewer is Katherine Nagasawa and the interviewee is Kathy Biala. This interview is being recorded by the JASC Legacy Center in order to document the Japanese American Redress Movement in Chicago and the Midwest.

So I wanted to start with a question of when you first learned about incarceration in the first place because this is something that your family, or at least your parents hadn't directly experienced, but extended family had. So, how old were you and what was your reaction?

Kathy Biala:

You know, I am sure that I must have learned something about this in my schooling in high school, but I don't recall it, actually. So, I think it was 00:01:00because of a Nisei guy, Frank Sakamoto, in Chicago. He was in the JACL, in the Hundreds Club, and I know that he was a friend of my father's. And if you know Frank, he's always very bubbly and excited and very passionate about JACL. And so I bet that he introduced me into the JACL, the Chicago chapter, is how I think that must have happened. I don't know specifically, but I think once I was part of JACL in Chicago, there were so many young people like myself, and so I think that it sort of fit. It was both doing a civic duty, but it was also connecting with other Japanese Americans that were younger.

So it wasn't a chapter filled with Issei or Nisei. It was actually like myself, 00:02:00maybe more Sansei driven. So I think that maybe was a unique JACL chapter.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Yeah. When I was talking to the guy from Cleveland, he said his chapter was 90% Nisei, 10% Sansei. So it seems like Chicago was a very young chapter. So do you remember, was it Frank, the person who told you about incarceration? Or did you learn about it through JACL programming?

Kathy Biala:

I don't really recall. Now, this is terrible to say, but in grammar school I wrote a poem, actually, I was trying to find it for you, but I still have it. And it was about a carrier pigeon who apparently I had read something about it, and so my poem was about the brave carrier pigeon that communicated from the Lost Battalion back to reinforcement in the Army. And his leg was shot off and he kept going, and so he saved the Lost Battalion.

It wasn't until later, probably in my JACL time that, when I encountered that poem that I had written. I was ashamed to realize that it was the Japanese American, either the 442 or the 100th Battalion that actually saved the Lost Battalion in Italy. And so this is the kind of distortions that kind of happen with the history of the Japanese Americans. But so, I'm not sure exactly how the connections got made, but as the connections started becoming more real to me, then I realized what we haven't known, what we haven't been taught in schools.

Katherine Nagasawa:

And how did you react to that? You were probably in your twenties right, when that realization happened. Do you remember the emotions that you felt?

Kathy Biala:

I don't remember the emotions, only that obviously I wanted to get involved enough so that, at least cerebrally, I knew that this was something that was 00:04:00historic and that something was wrong. But I didn't feel emotions, per se, as a Sansei, I think it was seen or experienced more as a duty for me to be involved.

Katherine Nagasawa:

And when did you first learn about the redress movement and what JACL was doing for it? And, I guess, what roped you into that?

Kathy Biala:

Again, I don't have the memories, but I know that if the JACL was the one sort of overseeing the whole commission hearings that you just got absorbed in it. And so I think it was just by my becoming part of JACL Chicago chapter that the commitment was there for us to do something about it.

Katherine Nagasawa:

And who would you say were the other sansei, who were most highly involved in the redress with you? You mentioned a couple earlier. What names do you remember?

Kathy Biala:

I remember Frank Sakamoto, as I said, and Ron Yoshino and Jane Kaihatsu. She and 00:05:00I actually became fairly good friends. We were both single women at the time, professional women, and so we had a lot of social interactions outside of JACL. And I had actually forgotten that she was at one time the president of the JACL. But so I remember Mike Ushijima. He was an attorney and was very articulate and very smart, and he was very involved.

And Betty Hasegawa, I do remember her because she was a nurse and I was a nurse also. And so I think we had that special connection. There were other people, I have photographs of them in a social event, and I have all their business cards still. I don't quite remember many of them, I do kind of remember John Tani, but we were all of similar ages, which is amazing to have that kind of esprit de 00:06:00corps of a group of about the same age young people at the time. I'm no longer young, but looking back, I was young. Yeah.

Katherine Nagasawa:

What was the dynamic of that group? Did you guys hang out outside of JACL? And what do you feel like bonded you guys together as Sansei professionals?

Kathy Biala:

I do think, I don't remember it, but because I have all these photographs of us in a social setting playing different games and Mike Ushijima was a wonderful guitarist and so we would do sing alongs. I remember that. So I think there was a pretty good social connection among us. I don't remember all of them, but I do have the documentation of one event anyway. And I know Jane and I had a lot of social contact.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Could you describe the dinners that you would have with Jane, and do you 00:07:00remember the bar? You said it was in Andersonville, right? Maybe?

Kathy Biala:

No, no, it was in Chicago.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Oh, in Chicago.

Kathy Biala:

Yeah. Well, we were both single professional women, so we would meet maybe every week or at least maybe every other week, and we would go and have so much to talk about. We'd go to, maybe it was in Old Town, we'd go to a bar, but we didn't drink. So it was just purely sitting at the bar and eating an early dinner. And then as time went by, this is an hour later, two hours later, we'd look around and now the lights were dim and all of the hip people were coming in for nightlife and we were there in our suits still. Both of us were in our suits sitting at the bar. A little out of place, but yeah, I remember that. It was very fun.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Can you tell me about the process of talking to your Uncle Hiro about his camp 00:08:00experience and then how you convinced him to testify at the hearings?

Kathy Biala:

Well, this is something really interesting. Because I don't have the memory of actually asking him, I must have told him what we were doing in JACL and then asked him, but I don't remember any resistance at all. So I think that once he heard it, I think that he pretty soon afterwards decided that was what he was going to do. And this is from an uncle who I was very close to, in the sense that our families were always together. And I would not have considered him at all a very assertive person, in fact, he has passed away for many years now, so I think I can say this, is that he would not be somebody that I would think would have such strong commitments on so many issues.

So it was something that now retrospectively I see as a really important aspect of him that I did not see. And maybe it was just confined to the internment camp, because as a child I remember being with him and witnessing something happening in the apartment building next door. And rather than aiding a woman who needed help, obviously she was yelling, and he said, "Let's not get involved." So that was my feeling about how he was. And this was when I was much younger, but I remember that.

So when I recently interacted with Katherine and I saw the video of his testimony, I was pretty awed because I had forgotten how articulate he was and how he was willing to talk about an incident that was about a white mess officer 00:10:00who was stealing food from the internees and the scuffle that broke out, and apparently he was involved in part of the physical altercation, and then was very fearful of the consequences of that episode. And when I see how clear his voice was, how composed he was, and his willingness to say things that maybe had been so suppressed for so many years, I was awed by that, quite frankly, seeing this in the present.

And I will say that his children, and me, because we were his wife's family, his wife and my mother were sisters -- no one had ever known that he was in camp. And it was a shock to all of us. He had completely kept that silent. So when I 00:11:00saw what he did and what he said, I really knew that this was something that he was yearning to say.

Katherine Nagasawa:

It almost took somebody asking him to just light that flame, or draw it out of him.

Kathy Biala:

Yes, for sure. And I don't know how typical that was, but again, I know it's pretty typical that a lot of the Japanese American internees don't communicate anything to their immediate family, their children, or anyone. And this was so incredibly the story of my Uncle Hiro (Hiroshi) Kadokura for sure.

Katherine Nagasawa:

I imagine, you were part of the Witness Identification Committee, that a lot of your work exposed you to Issei and Nisei telling their stories for the first time. Maybe if you don't remember distinct memories, that's okay, but do you 00:12:00remember the feeling as a Sansei of bearing witness to those stories and to that openness, the opening of something that had been so suppressed?

Kathy Biala:

I don't. I can't say that I can say anything other than for my uncle, because I knew him. I don't know the other Issei and Nisei experience with this at all. I have an aunt whose father was one of the No-No Boys, and I only learned that because she passed away. Mrs. Chino passed away, and in her eulogy I learned that he was a No-No Boy and that because of that, they were moved, I think, to Poston, because if you were a No-No Boy, you went to a higher security area. But I had no knowledge of that either.

I don't know in what context we would've known as we grew up as children, but 00:13:00certainly in my uncle's case, even as adults, because I knew that family as adults also, and nothing was ever said. When I read the testimonies of the people from the Chicago commission hearings, and they are really packed with some really traumatic statements and recounting their experiences, but I honestly don't remember the impact on me. It's only retrospectively that I look at that and say, "Wow." I don't even remember anyone crying. And I don't know whether you have seen that, but in the testimonies in Chicago, did any of the internees, or the Nisei, did they cry or? They did.

Katherine Nagasawa:

A couple. Yeah, there was one Elsa Kudo, she was a Japanese Peruvian, and she, I 00:14:00think they had to stop partway, and then she continued. And there were a couple where they had Kleenexes. But I was just curious from your perspective as a psychiatric nurse to witness that process of somebody unearthing trauma, how you would have perceived that, especially because you probably dealt with it professionally.

Kathy Biala:

Yeah, and that's odd that I wouldn't have remembered people crying at the time of the practice, or anything like that. I don't remember that. And maybe we were so focused in on the actual delivery, that during practice maybe it didn't come out. Because I don't recall. I would've recalled if it had been very traumatic for people in the beginning. But I think if we were editing speeches, if we were setting up the right atmosphere so they would know what to expect next and all 00:15:00of that, maybe that kind of whitewashed everything.

I just don't know, because it would be, as you say, as a psychiatric nurse, a highly common experience for me to be involved in very dramatic or high emotion situations, and I don't really recall that in terms of my participation in the preparation. Doesn't mean it didn't happen, but maybe it was not so shocking to me as a person who dealt with a lot of emotional situations. Not sure.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Yeah. Maybe because it was so normal for you that it doesn't stick out quite as much. I was wondering also if you remembered any of the debates or tension points within the JACL chapter when it came to redress, because there were a lot 00:16:00of decisions that had to be made, whether it was going with the commission approach, or going directly for legislation, or deciding who gets to testify. So I was just curious, does anything come to mind when you think about topics of conversation or debate that you had as a chapter?

Kathy Biala:

Again, my memory is so clouded on that. I don't recall any conflict in our group, in our specific role of orchestrating and coordinating the hearings, I don't recall any conflict at all. And I don't even recall us talking more about the systemic racism involved, and maybe we didn't use those terms in those days, but now if I think about so many of the injustices that I'm involved with in social and racial inequities and injustices -- I have a lot of emotions. And 00:17:00it's propelled me personally to do more reading about racism in this country, and I'd never needed to or never felt driven to learn more about this thing called systemic racism. And the internment was one of the most egregious systemic injustices on a racial ground. And yet, I don't recall ever being propelled to do more reading about racism at the time.

It was kind of like, "This happened, and now we're trying to redress it," but it didn't morph into something more outrageous about racism across the country. It was maybe compartmentalized. I'm not sure how to, why it didn't stimulate me to 00:18:00do what I'm doing today, to really try to understand how did this thing happen? How is it possible that we got into this situation? And learning about more dynamics of the impact of systemic racism on people of color? It didn't propel me to do that.

Now, I don't know whether we had discussions about it, but even if I have any discussions about racism today, and this is how many years later, it still provokes so much emotions not just for me, but to anyone out there talking about it, to people of color, to people defending themselves against racism, saying they're not racist when in fact they could be. And so there's a lot of things that I've just understood now that never in the past did I feel this was 00:19:00something that was of the same topic. It was almost like it wasn't part of a global or national issue of racism, and it absolutely was.

Katherine Nagasawa:

So that you saw it maybe more as an isolated injustice that needed redressing, but not connecting it to other communities' plights necessarily, maybe.

Kathy Biala:

That's probably so. And in addition that it didn't pique my curiosity in terms of what was written, and what the state of knowledge is about racism in general. And I'm sure, because the civil rights issues were preceding this whole thing. And so all of that, but it didn't stimulate me to do reading. And now my bookshelf is full of publications and books about this issue of racism. How does 00:20:00it still persist? How do we understand it? What are the solutions?

I have such a deep interest now in it, and also deep concern, because I have of recent times becoming a public official, been subject to alarming attacks based on the fact that I'm a person of color, which seems unbelievable. I consider myself a typical "model minority," I'm educated, I'm articulate, I write well, I dress well, I've always have felt that pressure to be the best dressed in any circumstances. So yet I'm still exposed to some very blatant racist attacks. That is the bridge. Why am I saying this to you in 2022 when we're talking about 00:21:00something that happened in 1981? And it's still here, it's still present.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Yeah, it's just interesting comparing what drove you then versus what drives you now and just how much that has changed over time.

Kathy Biala:

Yeah. I do wonder why we didn't talk about this in the context of general racism. It didn't actually broaden itself to a discussion even among the JACLers, because I don't recall any discussion even about the pushback that I'm sure must have been there at the time in the news. I have been recently involved in the ending of a terrible cultural appropriations issue with the Feast of 00:22:00Lanterns in Pacific Grove. It's gained statewide attention as a matter of fact. And I just wonder how we didn't think of it in a broader context.

And even when my involvement, I have been singled out by elected officials running for offices, specifically aimed at me because of my involvement in giving testimony about the Feast of Lanterns in Pacific Grove. Now, there have been a lot of editorials in our local papers that are pretty racist in retaliation for this movement to rectify the cultural appropriation of an annual event, a popular annual event called The Feast of Lanterns.

So they were very unkind and very, in my opinion, racist comments that were 00:23:00being published as Letters to the Editor. Now, you would think that back in 1981, that they would've had the same experience. I'm sure the papers must have been filled with a lot of pushback of saying, "Why are they bringing up something that happened so long ago? What gives them the right to start saying that we're going to spend our taxpayer money on redress? They've gotten over it, they've succeeded far above everyone else." But I didn't get exposure to what else was happening out there. And it must have been.

But I don't recall us talking about it or revealing these things among ourselves to say, "This is why this has to be now, this is why we have to do this. Because 00:24:00this kind of sentiment makes it want to be erased from history. And the legitimacy of what we're doing is being challenged all the time in newspapers, or letters of editors, or ..." I don't recall any harassment happening, but it seems like, just based on what I'm experiencing now in my small world here, that there must have been a lot of pushback. But I'm not aware of it. I wasn't aware of it at the time. And now retrospectively, I'm not even aware that it happened at the time.

Katherine Nagasawa:

I remember Bill Yoshino did mention to me that the context of anti-Japanese hate, because of the trade war with Japan in the '80s, made it difficult to lobby for redress because people would associate Japanese American redress with Japan and then get confused. Or there was just general anti-Asian sentiment with 00:25:00Vincent Chin's murder, and kind of what was happening with the manufacturing industry in the Midwest. So at least from his vantage point -- and he was looking at kind of the broader region. I think he was aware of a lot of that pushback, or maybe it came to him because he was the chair. And so maybe members might not have had it directed at them. But that is an interesting observation that at least you don't remember conversations as a chapter.

Kathy Biala:

No, no.

Katherine Nagasawa:

I was wondering if you could talk more about the Nisei involved in JACL. And what was the relationship between their generation and then those younger Sansei that you were part of? What role do you feel like each generation played in redress?

Kathy Biala:

Well actually, when I think about it, Betty Hasegawa is Nisei, right? Yeah?

Katherine Nagasawa:

I think so.

Kathy Biala:

I think so, too. And Frank Sakamoto was. And quite frankly, outside of those 00:26:00two, I don't recall a whole lot of Nisei being involved in the Chicago chapter. And yet I know that we inherited their legacy because the JACL was strong. And so somehow, they made this dramatic handing over the baton to the next generation. That was their legacy. And it really did happen because judging from my photos, they're all Sansei people that were involved in this. But I don't recall other specific interactions. And I just remember Frank Sakamoto being the cheerleader for JACL. And so he must have thought that it was important to get more Sansei involved. So I don't recall that there was involvement of a lot of 00:27:00Nisei. No, I can't say that I know that.

Katherine Nagasawa:

What about Chiye Tomihiro? Do you remember her? She was, I think, the head of the Witness Identification Committee. In general, I think she was one of the most involved Nisei in the chapter. And I know also Shig Wakamatsu was involved as well. And do you remember Sam Ozaki at all?

Kathy Biala:

Mm-mm.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Okay. I think they would have been much older than you, but it seems like maybe there were kind of factions, or there was a strong Sansei cohort. And then maybe the Nisei were in their own kind of group, or something?

Kathy Biala:

Could be.

Katherine Nagasawa:

But yeah. I also wonder what it was like for you to actually be at the commission hearings. Could you paint a picture for me of what the room was like? 00:28:00Any details that you remember from the day, whether it was listening to your uncle or helping with the JACL organization?

Kathy Biala:

It's very, very blurry. I just remember a large room. And I remember that in order to expedite the hearing, that we were trying to be very efficient, so that when people's names were called they were put into a holding section. And so when it came to their turn, they were. It was very efficient. I think we were very focused, or at least I recall our being really focused. Not so much on the content and stuff, but really making sure that this came off very organized and orderly and not wasting a lot of time. Because I've been through many public hearings now and the thing is so lengthy because people are trying to get to 00:29:00their seats, and having to go through many different rows of people, and everybody's waiting. And there's just so much downtime. So I do recall mostly that.

And I do recall being there and a man who I never knew came up to me and he had a packet of original newsletters from one of the internment camps. And he had been asking around who could he give this to? And somebody told him to find me. And so I received them. And I actually donated them to the Chicago chapter of the JACL. So I hope that they have all of that. And I had made copies, which I thought I had still saved them, but I can't find them. But anyway, this man turned out to be a person that I married and was married for eight and a half 00:30:00years. Not such a good ending. But anyway, I had met him during the hearings.

And I do recall perusing those newsletters. And what was stunning to me is that these are the folks who were so dramatically affected. Their whole lives turned upside down and they were incarcerated in horrible places, dismal environmental places, with guards and everything. And if you looked at these newsletters, it was as though it was a social club. It was as though there was nothing going on around them, that there were baseball teams, that there was asking for volunteers for this event, or it was so normal that it was just shocking to me 00:31:00when I actually read the newsletters.

And that's all that I recall from that. So it's something to look at for people to understand how the internees had to, so much, try to be normal for their families, for their future. And it was just such a shock, because it was so opposite of what the real situation was. And there was no mention of any of their struggles or their worries or their concerns for their family. There was nothing in that. You would think it was just a camp, a summer camp. A nice summer camp that they went to.

Katherine Nagasawa:

I wonder how much those camp newsletters were censored, too.

Kathy Biala:

That's probably true.

Katherine Nagasawa:

And also maybe if it was written from a younger person's perspective, it might be different than an adult.

Kathy Biala:

Right.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Yeah. I think what's striking to me is during the actual testimonies, those kinds of details that would have gotten buried, came out, whether it was somebody whose father was sick with cancer and then they had to be separated when the family left. Or some of these really traumatic experiences of having to be the head of the family at 13. I guess, do you remember any of those -- your reaction to those kinds of details -- when you heard the kind of raw emotion?

Kathy Biala:

I don't, I'm sorry. I just don't. My aunt said to me about her experience in the camp, and again, this sort of goes along with the newsletter. She says, "I can't stand apple butter. We had so much apple butter in the camps that just the thought of it," she says, "is repulsive." So again, it's this focus on the 00:33:00smaller aspects. Maybe in order to cope with the larger tragedy. I don't know. But I'm sorry, I don't recall-

Katherine Nagasawa:

No worries.

Kathy Biala:

... My own experience hearing some of the tragedy, other than it be sort of cerebral. That, my gosh, this is what really happened. It wasn't the emotional impact.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Do you remember if any family members attended the hearings, besides just your uncle and you?

Kathy Biala:

You know, I don't. I don't think they did. And I'm pretty sure that even his children didn't attend.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Not even his wife, you think?

Kathy Biala:

Mm-mm (negative).

Katherine Nagasawa:

No?

Kathy Biala:

Yeah, because I was very close to my aunt. And I don't recall interacting with her at all. I think he just came by himself.

Katherine Nagasawa:

And I think they would have had to take work off too, which might have been challenging.

Kathy Biala:

Right.

Katherine Nagasawa:

I think we talked about this on the phone, but I'm curious, and this is something we're trying to understand broadly, from all the people we're interviewing, is what made the Midwest unique in the redress movement? And I think you mentioned something about the type of person that would have stayed in the Midwest compared to the West Coast, and that ... I don't know, bringing out something different in the community. But what would your answer be to that question, about what stands out to you about the Midwest?

Kathy Biala:

Yeah. I do think there probably was a difference, because people, rather than coming back to try and pick up the pieces of their former lives on the West Coast, the people who said, made a concerted decision that I'm leaving all this 00:35:00behind, either because it was so traumatic, or because they simply felt they could make it in a better place elsewhere. And so they packed up and they traveled quite a long way. I know even today, if I ever have to go back to the Midwest, it's a long flight. And it probably was very expensive at the time. And so these kinds of folks with this kind of determination might have sort of selected out a different kind of person who was brave enough to try their hand at something completely new and unknown.

Katherine Nagasawa:

That's true, that you would feel comfortable staying in that kind of environment, rather than going back to what's maybe familiar.

Kathy Biala:

Right. And you know Chicago. I was born and raised in Chicago, so I know what the conditions of weather are, and Chicago is definitely the Windy City. And 00:36:00when it's wintertime and you have that wind blowing, I mean, we are talking minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit. So for the Californians to pack up and go to a place where the summers are hot and humid and the winters are incredibly cold -- it's a very new experience from California. So I've gone the other way. I'm so happy to leave the weather conditions in Chicago and you couldn't make me move anywhere except California.

Katherine Nagasawa:

That's funny. I feel like I did a yo-yo, or a boomerang. Grew up in California, spent 10 years in Chicago, now I'm back in the warm weather.

Kathy Biala:

Yeah.

Katherine Nagasawa:

I was curious what you feel like the JA community would be like if that redress process never happened?

Kathy Biala:

Well, the redress part ... Well, I think that because of the internment camps, 00:37:00everything that people had built up was really lost. I mean, I have just recently encountered a book of this area, which is the central coast of Marina that includes ... I mean, the central coast of California that includes the peninsula. And I have recently encountered a map outlining the businesses on the now very famous Monterey Wharf. Before the internment camps, there was 50% businesses on the wharf that were Japanese American. And the map included the names of the businesses, the people, the owners of the businesses. And now, if you look at what's on the Monterey Wharf, there are zero Japanese American owners.

And so that is intergenerational wealth lost forever. So had there not been redress ... And I'm not sure the value of $30,000 at the time when it was disseminated, but you can't possibly make up that kind of loss. And so whether ... I doubt that even that amount of money could have re-bought what you had lost, in terms of a business location on Monterey Wharf. It's really sad when you think about the opportunities for other generations to have benefited from the legacy of the first and second generations. And it was just all taken away from them.

And so had it not been for redress, I don't know that it would've mattered so 00:39:00much -- not money wise anyway. The issue for redress, to me, is not so much the money, because apparently, as you told me, which I was unaware of, that many of the recipients did donate to causes, or to, to make sure that the legacy, the history of the Japanese American internment camps was known and cemented somewhere in textbooks or out there in the world of information.

So I don't know that the money redress part was so important. But certainly, as we've talked about, having that voice and being able to say to other Americans what actually happened, that -- the redress was so important. Now, it didn't take the commission hearings to have that goal. We could have had that regardless, right? I mean, we didn't have to have the commission redress 00:40:00hearings. But for some reason we didn't have, as a community, the voice or the means in media to really make a difference in that. So it did take the commission hearings at a federal level. But I'm glad that we had that. And not, again, for the money. It's not about the money. It's the story that had to come out again.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Yeah. That's so interesting how it's kind of related to what you were saying about "What does healing look like to you?" in that article that you shared with me. Can you answer that question, but thinking about what it means for Japanese Americans to be healed? Is it ever over, I guess? And what did it mean to heal for you?

Kathy Biala:

Well, if I put in context this issue of, "Am I healed?" Going through an 00:41:00experience like that, just even peripherally, and also, if I was an internee, I would say that the healing of saying your story doesn't really hit the spot. My uncle, I remember asking him, "Uncle Hiro, do you think this could ever happen again?" And I was professional person, Sansei, had a good job, et cetera. And I was just utterly shocked when he said, "Oh, yeah. I think it could happen again." And I said, "Really?" He says, "Yes." It was just really shocking to me that he could say that.

But now, based on what I'm experiencing, 2022, yes. I absolutely think that the issues of racism are very deep in this country. And any time there is the need 00:42:00to serve the majority population, all of the social and racial and environmental justice can easily be put out the window. And so I absolutely concur with him, that in many different shapes and forms, it will absolutely and could and does happen today.

So I'm not sure how we heal, if healing means that we have the feeling that it will never happen again, or we have advanced to the place where we don't have to worry about it. That's not healing. The healing is only that, as we gain more confidence in ourselves, that we are not going to be silent about it, that we will have the ability now to, as people often say, is "in solidarity." That phrase now has a new meaning for me, because only in our not being passive, and 00:43:00our banding together on the assaults to any one of us, or any one group of us, that's the only way we'll have a chance to prevent it.

That's healing for me, when I see that the Asian community has now gained a voice, and that we are not so reticent anymore. And especially the younger people because I've put myself out there on the limb for a lot of stuff recently, but I'm always impressed by the younger Asian Americans, who quite freely speak up. Their voices are strong. They have, to me, a lot of courage just sort of popping out. For me, I have to worry about it. I have to prepare for it. I have to think so much of all the consequences. And they are different. 00:44:00They see something wrong and they will say, you know, "This is wrong," and be able to articulate without having to have all the anxiety that I have to have.

That's what I think makes me hopeful, is that the younger people are not constrained by what will other people think of me, and, oh, what are the consequences? And my self-esteem is affected because these people are going to be saying nasty things and mean things to me, et cetera, et cetera. I am out there, but I suffer a lot because of that inner voice that I haven't been able to grapple with. I have to keep telling myself over and over when I stick my neck out there. I have to keep saying, "They can't hurt me." I have to keep that mantra in me because something inside me says they are going to hurt me, and they will hurt me. Whereas some of the younger people, they're so brave, and 00:45:00they're so willing to put themselves out.

So we just have to kind of encourage that more. And I'm really hopeful that we can develop the younger generation leadership. And that means kind of breaking out from our cultural heritage because we are the older generation, because I can now say I'm the older generation. We have been so hampered by passivity, by thinking of what other people think, rather than staying the course and being out there, and not just bystanders. And I mean, not just for the Asian community, but for other people of color, as well.

Katherine Nagasawa:

How do you think redress played a role -- that process of advocating for redress, testifying, organizing -- how do you feel like that strengthened that, as you refer to it, the voice of the Japanese American community?

Kathy Biala:

Well, I will tell you just in the one instance that I was very intimately connected with, and that was my uncle. This was a guy who I had never dreamed had that kind of powerful voice. And he did it. And if he can do it, and I don't know that he's done it since that time, but one person learning how to do it, seeing how important it is, and risking whatever is happening to them, that's hope. That's healing.

Katherine Nagasawa:

That's powerful. Yeah. It's almost like cultivating, like the process isn't over, but you're cultivating your resilience or ability to stand up in the future. And I feel like, when I was talking to Bill Yoshino, he said the one big opportunity the community had to exercise voice was after 9/11 when a lot of 00:47:00leaders in JACL did speak up in support of Muslim Americans and saying, "We cannot let this happen to their community." I guess, have you reflected on that? Or have you seen Japanese Americans exercise voice in other public ways? Or maybe, just answering directly from your experience, how have you exercised voice since moving to Marina?

Kathy Biala:

I did this in several ways, I think, in my political career, post-retirement.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Do you mind re-answering that question but just including, "I exercised the ability to speak out," or just referring to what you were ... Yeah.

Kathy Biala:

Well, in answer to your question about have I personally been able to be more vocal about issues of race and injustice, and I would say in my post-retirement 00:48:00time as an appointee on the planning commission, and then now as an elected official, as the Mayor Pro Tem of the City of Marina, I have really grown. And I look back and say, "Well, maybe the redress participation that I had was a precursor." I didn't recognize it as that, but I do think that now that I have the time and the energy to do this, I have done so many things that I'm even amazed that I've done.

The first one was that I pushed an appendix to the downtown vitalization specific plan, in which we included subtle Asian designs in the appendix. And to get that in, I was the only person of color in a task force of 12, and over a 00:49:00year and a half I experienced so many microaggressions about racial issues. There was nobody there to support me. And the Asian community, who were unbelievable, came to the audience and did speak up.

That was the first time many of them had ever attended a public hearing and done any statements, and this was a very informal one granted, it wasn't even recorded unfortunately because of the setting. But I endured that for a year and a half, and it culminated actually with the committee voting to not even include this document as part of the specific plan going forward to the planning commission. We averted that, but that's one example. My first example of what happens. And these things are very subtle. I gave a wonderful slide presentation on the diversity of Marina and everybody clapped, but afterwards apparently two 00:50:00separate groups went and complained about why I was allowed to do this.

Again, these kinds of actions are there all the time, and you have to learn how to keep at it, and hopefully this appendix, which is still unapproved in terms of the whole specific plan, and it's coming maybe in a year, hopefully that it will not disappear, because of the kind of effort that we all had to do for that. And then the Feast of Lantern... And by the way, I did experience a lot of racism, as I said, running for city council, and that was tremendously traumatic to me because it was an issue of power of people on the old council sitting on 00:51:00the dais doing this to a candidate of color. It was very tragic. I endured that as well.

Then with the Feast of Lanterns, specifically, I was able to encourage Asian communities of Marina -- these are the residents of the City of Marina -- to be able to speak at another city's city council, looking at the issues of this Feast of Lanterns in which historically the Chinese village in Pacific Grove was one of the largest settlements in California Coast at the time, and they were, by racist activities, their entire village was burned to the ground. That was in 1906.

And after that, Pacific Grove continued to perpetuate a Feast of Lanterns in which a made-up story about the Chinese was perpetuated in which people were 00:52:00allowed to boo the Mandarin King. And they had a topaz, a what was it? A beauty contest in which Caucasian women dressed in Chinese garb and painted their faces yellow and taped up their eyes. If that isn't cultural appropriation? And yet this Feast of Lanterns has been going on up until two years ago, a year ago, when we were finally able to advocate against it. But in that process a lot of racist things were said by the population in Pacific Grove. So we know, again, racism is alive and well. I also was singled out by an unkind comment because I 00:53:00had spoken at the Pacific Grove City Council as well.

So these things I have taken hits for but felt very compelled that we do deserve representation, that we do deserve to be respected, and we just have to plow through it and somebody has to take the risks. If we are silent, they would've continued to have that Feast of Lanterns.

And one of the original descendants of that village, Randy, his wife, Gerry Sabado, had been fighting this for 10 years. 10 years. Trying to get the Feast of Lanterns to be more culturally appropriate and also without the racist elements. 10 years nothing happened. She was ignored. She was in some cases 00:54:00vilified or dismissed. And once she passed away, within two months, the rest of us from Asian communities of Marina and Coalition for Asian Justice, we're all fairly new organizations in the region, we got it done and we were able to stop the Feast of Lanterns.

So again, this is proof that if we stay together, if we have the solidarity that we hope that we can generate, we can change many things. But as individuals, it will take a much longer time. So, yes, I think I have learned that if we stay together, and our voice is so much stronger.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Can you talk about some of the work you've done with bringing together a Pan-Asian community in Marina, and why that fits into this larger effort to 00:55:00unify Asian American voices to speak up?

Kathy Biala:

Yeah. It was about maybe five years ago now that because Marina has a very large percentage of our population is Asians, and that's because of the military. The American government stationed American GIs who married foreign brides, specifically Asian brides, from World War II, from the Korean War and the Vietnam War. They were stationed in Marina. And so we have benefited from that governmental initiative, and I don't know whether that was in a negative way or whether it was in a perceived as being a positive thing, but it did end up to be a very positive thing for us, because we have such a high percentage, and that's continued. And I think that we have our Asian Communities of Marina has Chinese, 00:56:00Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and South Asian -- we're working on that one. So we have all of these. And Vietnamese. We have all of these populations involved now in one organization, and we're learning how to pronounce each other's names correctly, and we're learning more about each other's histories.

But it's difficult. We always want to say that we are Asian Americans, but based on the global history of our countries, it's been somewhat difficult in the newer immigrants, who are Americans, and the third and fourth generation of Asian Americans, we think differently. Sometimes what's been hampering our organization is the history of oppression of, let's say, Japan with many of the 00:57:00countries. And so we have some tension in our group.

And so we've chosen to focus on Asian American history of which each of our cultures has inevitably experienced some global racist oppression or discrimination, and that is the history that's binding for us. And I hope that we're going to be able to, with a lot of talking and discussions as well as being supportive of any of the events that I've spoken about, that we regardless of whether it's supporting Chinese Americans or Filipino Americans, our group will be there if there's any violence or repercussions or discrimination and prejudice in our world, in our microcosm of the world.

And so I always look at our local region as being the microcosm of the world because if we can't in Marina, in this kind of organization, find a way to be always respectful and united as vastly different Asian groups, then what hope do we have when we say "Pan-Asian" out there, that we're all grouped together, and yet functionally on a one-to-one basis, we can't get along? That to me is why this is so important that we bridge these gaps, even at our local level.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Can you also talk about the work that you did with the Coastal Commission and sort of how that ties into helping a community find its voice, or speaking out in support of a marginalized group?

Kathy Biala:

Yes, I'd be happy to talk about this very recent California Coastal Commission 00:59:00hearing, just happened November 17th. I'm still kind of taking a deep breath and trying to understand this from a larger perspective and maybe a more balanced personal perspective. But I had been very involved in this as one of the leadership in our community to fight the CalAm, which is a private, for-profit mega corporation water company, that because of their mismanagement, in my opinion, of the water source on the peninsula, the wealthy tourist peninsula, Monterey Peninsula, they needed a new source of water. And so they decided to put a desalination project on Marina's beaches and to pump massive amounts of our water, including our groundwater, which is our sole source of water, by the way, potable water, to pump that and to desalinate it in the county facility 01:00:00that they would build and ship a hundred percent of it to the peninsula, which is white and wealthy.

And Marina was never to get any of its water, but destroy our wildlife on our pristine beaches and to block an access for which... Marina worked very hard to close the last active sand mining on any U.S. shores, and that was going to result in in a year, it's been five years now, in a year, that whole Cemex sand mining on our coast is going to be shut down for good and be sold to public agencies and dedicated to conservation and low impact recreation in perpetuity. That's what we were expecting on that property. And on that same property, CalAm 01:01:00intruded, and without legal water rights, had perpetuated and advanced this illicit project.

And two years ago at the last hearing in which the Coastal Commission considered this project, they clearly said, "This is an environmental justice to a disadvantaged community of color." And they recommended denial of this project. CalAm pulled their application the night before the decision was going to be made in 2020. We haven't heard from them for two years, and then now with a new application, with actually another application, they have now had the time in two years to mobilize the governor's office, and all the other politicians, so that now this hearing was an absolute sham. And they approved it with significant issues still pending, and with the environmental injustice reasons 01:02:00clearly intact, so they were able to get this approved.

And that just happened, and this is in some ways as big of a decision as the internment camp. That ignoring all of the social and racial injustices of an action got approved by the government and is now being enacted. It's the same kind of thing and you have to say, "How is it that in this day and age when we know that most coastal cities in California and probably on the east-coast are white and wealthy? How does that happen?" And Marina is one of the last few disadvantaged communities of color that has an ocean front. And this is what 01:03:00happened. They're going to ruin it because they have greater needs for another community and that overshadows anything.

And when you speak of disadvantaged communities of color and environmental justice, you are also talking about racism. And the same goes, I believe, for the internment camps, whether it was economically more advantageous to the majority culture, and we were discounted and ignored and preyed on basically. This is what the injustice is all about. And somehow even in modern times from 1981 to today, these things are still happening. Even though we have policies, Coastal Commission has a great policy on environmental injustice as does most of the state organizations now in California. But what is the good of having a 01:04:00statement that you're an American citizen or a statement that says that, "We are aware of environmental injustice and here are all the facts related to that." What is the purpose of any of this if it can be sold, if it can be suppressed, if it can be ignored in a flash of a second? It can happen. It's still happening.

Katherine Nagasawa:

What was the role that you played with the Coastal Commission issue? Can you talk about what you personally did?

Kathy Biala:

I did a lot, from six years ago when it was being heard at the California Public Utilities Commission, I and some colleagues on the Peninsula, because the water is for the benefit of the peninsula but they don't even want it. They are paying the highest rates of water in the country, and CalAm has not been a good 01:05:00purveyor of water all these many years and they don't want to jump to the highest cost water when there is an alternative of recycled water, and that's a fact.

But so I've had lots of colleagues on the peninsula. We went all over the state talking with legislators. We have had many times where we rallied our community to go and speak at the CPUC, and yet it passed, their environmental impact report passed. Then it shifted to the Coastal Commission. And I will tell you that I have been such an advocate and outspoken person against this project that when I was a planning commissioner, they came to Marina for what we call a Coastal Development Permit.

I was on the planning commission at the time. CalAm wrote an exposé on me that was literally this thick, with CDs in the back of it, tracing everything that I had ever said, any appearances or educational forums, including pictures of me testifying, or being in an educational forum. This was done, by the way, by the second-largest attorney firm in the world, in the world. And I was a volunteer on a planning commission in a small city. That's how much that they saw me as a threat. And since that time, even as an elected person, I continue to rally our troops. There were two hearings before this November 17th, one of which, the last one of course, we rallied everybody, but they pulled their application so all of that went down the drain. But the other one before that, we were so proud 01:07:00of our community. It took an extraordinary amount of work to get people of color in our community to rally and pack the venues, absolutely pack the venues, and I can show you some of the videotapes that we made on it.

It was stunning. So that was maybe one of the first ways that I started getting connected with our minority populations, or not minority anymore in this city, but typically the racial and ethnic marginalized communities. It brought tears to the commissioners to see the sincerity of all these people of color showing up to testify. They have seen many different projects in which there are maybe a handful of people speaking up, but Marina showed them that we do care, and that we can speak up because they were supporting us and our communities of color 01:08:00rallied. It was very inspirational.

And so we did that twice, but CalAm pulled it for two years, it was nothing. This is one of their strategies. These corporations can wear us down. We were able to do that for the last two months, preceding the November 17th, because we only had two months now to rally our whole troops again. We did a fabulous job. There were 300 people that spoke. It was absolutely stunning. And we had our minority groups speaking, including our Asian Communities of Marina. It was beyond our wildest expectation. There was a lot of hard work put into it, but we succeeded in our end of it and, of course, politics prevailed instead. But again, this is something that takes time, and I was a very much grassroots mobilizer. Even working as an official of City of Marina, I could also still 01:09:00wear my hat as a citizen of the community.

And so we were able to rally the troops because the government as a whole doesn't have the connections nor the capacity to do what grassroots mobilization can do.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Can I share something that I've sort of observed about you having this conversation and connecting the dots from things I've read about you in the past? I feel like since you were really young, you were always interested in enabling people to speak for themselves or to stand up for themselves and share their story. Even if you don't remember exactly the process in 1981, you were part of the team that identified witnesses and galvanized the community to share 01:10:00their story and pulled people like your uncle in to speak up. And there were similar hearings and similar commissioners that were witnessing that. And I feel like today, at the age of 70, you are rallying other members of marginalized communities to speak up. And it's really powerful to see that through line in your life. And just when you were saying about voice, the power of enabling somebody. Maybe you're not the one who's always speaking, but you are prodding them, or you're giving them the stage.

Kathy Biala:

Yeah. And I didn't quite understand that until you came into my life, where I'm having to look back at my life in one story, but I think that's true. And I have to say that it might even go beyond that because even in high school and prior to that, I always attached myself to the underdog. I think that I never saw 01:11:00myself as being popular. And even in the face of rejection by the people that were the popular kids in school, I always gravitated to the ones that were the outsiders or the rejects, so to speak.

And so maybe that's the kind of personality trait that one has to have, is that we believe, truly believe, that everybody is equal, that we all have the ability to have what other people have. And maybe that's the kind of thing is that I've always had that soft spot for the stray dogs. My husband jokes and says, "Well, that's why you married me, Kathy." But I think it's that position of truly caring about the people who don't have a voice or who are rejected by the powers that be. And so that maybe is a thread of my life. I don't know.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Yeah. Could you talk about that a little bit, about that through line of getting your uncle and getting other Japanese Americans to testify back then, and then that work that you're doing now to do a very similar kind of act.

Kathy Biala:

Yeah. I think there's two things about this that I think is important to recognize, because I belong to two very distinct Asian justice groups, the ACOM, the Asian Communities of Marina, that is more of our grassroots people. And then I have this Coalition for Asian Justice. These are professor types, these are high-powered people who in the past had significant careers, they're very articulate, they're very scholarly and academic and influential. And then I have 01:13:00this other hat that I wear, of people who may have very strong accents, who are not necessarily professor types or are just more of the grassroots people here in Marina. So I have both -- I have a foot in each of those.

I think that we can't discount either one of them in our movement to gain more visibility and respect and inclusion, because we need the people who are articulate, who have no problems going up and reciting facts and speaking the language of the power people essentially. And then we have all the people that are who we are representing, and they are not going to be the elites. They are 01:14:00going to be the average people who want to have a good life here in America and who may be very shy about speaking in public. I think that was so in redress and it's so in anything I've done here, is that going up to a podium in front of a large group of people on a dais who often don't look like you and who are very powerful people? To expect all these people to go up and speak, that's why they don't do it. But I have seen now where people are able to do this and they're willing to do this, but they need the encouragement. They need the backing to be able to do that.

So we need both, one can't exist without the other. If the Coalition for Asian Justice, in very sophisticated ways, know how to mobilize politicians, know how 01:15:00to go up in public hearings or write legal documents, because I've done all of that too. These are special skills, to be able to talk to the system that is oppressing you. You won't get that much traction unless you know how to maneuver, unless you know how to address them in their own game, so to speak. And then we have all the people for which you are fighting for, and they are the numbers. They are the people who, by numbers, are the people for whom we are advocating for. They can have a tremendous amount of power when they show up in numbers that a handful of the elite people won't be able to do. We won't be able to make that impact.

And so I've learned to be able to speak in both camps. So when I speak to some 01:16:00folks who are English as a second language or who may not be able to speak so articulately, I have to be able to communicate to them in a way that is effective. And then I can hang out with the most educated people because I can speak their language. I don't mean other than English, I'm speaking of, in the same vein, and be able to be respected on their terms, which is important. Because when we talk about systemic racism, you have to be able to speak to the system and not as an outsider. And so I think we need both of those talents.

And for some reason I think that I have bridged that gap. And particularly because I also know poverty. As a child, we were very, very poor and my father was really, really poor. I don't know how, I do know how, but he was one of 10 01:17:00children in the big island of Hawaii and somehow he managed to get a PhD from the best university in the country, one of the best. The University of Chicago has many Nobel Prize winners coming out of it and he's in biochemistry. So somehow he made it in that way, but we were extremely poor when we were little and he was dirt poor as one of 10 children in the Big Island. So I know what that's like, and I never consider myself an elite, having never been raised in that way.

Even though I'm comfortable now, and I think I'm very privileged. We were able to all get an education only because the University of Chicago paid for the colleges that the three of us went to. But otherwise, I don't know that I 01:18:00would've gotten my education, so to speak, without that financial help. And my father got it because of being a GI, the GI Bill helped him.

Now, when I see myself, I know that I don't have to worry about money. I don't have to worry about all the things that I know that my fellow residents and neighbors struggle. We are a disadvantaged community of color. We're being gentrified very quickly because we're maybe the last coastal city with a lot of land still, and there are million dollar homes being built here as starter homes. Most of our people in Marina would never, never, in 10 lifetimes be able to have a starter home that's $1.2 million. This is what's happening here, so we 01:19:00have a lot of challenges to keep the culture of our city by getting affordable housing, and so we're working on that. I'm personally working on that in terms of being in the Mayor Pro Tem role. But it keeps me centered, I would say. It keeps me centered to be in Marina and that's why I love this town so much.

Katherine Nagasawa:

I guess you maybe have access to the elite world, but you still identify with a lot of the grassroots community world.

Kathy Biala:

Yeah, yeah. I think my effectiveness in rallying our city for the different causes, whether it's lobbying against the Feast of Lanterns in another city or fighting for environmental injustice -- fighting for environmental justice -- in 01:20:00our community says that I have been effective somehow. Somehow I have not been seen as an elitist, and I am very grateful for that.

Katherine Nagasawa:

When you're trying to encourage somebody who might be an ESL speaker, who might never have testified at a commission hearing before and is kind of reluctant, how do you convince them? What is your approach?

Kathy Biala:

I think that first, the reason for their testifying has to be really clear to them, that they have to feel the same kind of commitment in speaking that anyone speaking on the issue would have, but even more so for these folks because they are having to be so much braver than most people. I will tell you that, even 01:21:00myself, I remember when I first came here 10 years ago, I did my first public speaking in a neighboring city called Seaside because I had learned in the Earth Day Festival in Marina that they were planning to build a racetrack with hotels and it was a monster project. So I went to hear one of the hearings. And again, this was a big corporation, all the people that were supporting them had literally shirts with logos embroidered on the lapels and I was thinking, "Whoa, this is a little unbalanced here."

I remember that they all lined up and it was coming to the end of the meeting and I said to my husband, I said, "I can't let that be the last testimony." And so I said, "I've got to speak." I wrote some stuff down and I went up to the 01:22:00podium. I thought I was going to faint because my heart was racing so badly that I literally I was scared out of my wits. And public speaking is not my forte. In fact, as mayor pro tem, I shy away from it. I'm really articulate and well presented when I'm at the dais because I'm working on problems and I just speak as I am thinking and it's over a specific issue. So I think I'm well respected as a member of the dais, but when it comes to ad-libbing or extemporaneous speaking, I freeze up.

So in the last, oh, maybe three years ago I joined Toastmasters. When I became elected, I thought, "I just freeze up, I can't do it." And so that's helped me a 01:23:00little bit, but that's me. And I taught at the university level in nursing at Fresno State and I've taught in Chicago at Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center in their College of Nursing. I'm a teacher, but I know what to say, this is my specialty, right? But if you ask me on the spot on something that I could be attacked for because they're not there to listen to me or get a grade from me, it's a whole different ballgame, and I'm always conscious of they're going to laugh at me or I'm going to say something stupid in front of all these people, and so I freeze up. That's me, and I'm highly educated and I speak English fluently, et cetera. Can you imagine what somebody who is a newer 01:24:00immigrant or English is not their first language or they work at the local drug store and they never would've seen themselves as coming up in front of a formal hearing to say anything?

So our expectations have to be with real, sincere appreciation and spending so much more time in order to get them motivated. I do believe that. You can ask your neighbor who's a Caucasian American and has good finances and has done a lot in the public eye and they'll say, "Sure, I'll do it." But with especially our Asian communities, you have to really handhold them and make it real to them and to make it simplified for them and to make it something that is important 01:25:00that they can do. Then you're able to do it, but it takes a lot of time.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Like a slow introduction of the idea and convincing? How do you feel like helping identify and prepare witnesses for the Chicago redress hearings maybe informed or shaped that practice later on in life of trying to convince other people to share their stories?

Kathy Biala:

I think that there's a direct correlation to that in my role then, which is cloudy for me, but since you say that I was so involved I have to take your word for it. And I want to read some of the things you presented to me.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Do you mind say saying that again, but saying, "I think there's a direct correlation between my involvement in the 1980s Chicago ..." Yeah.

Kathy Biala:

Okay.

I do think that there is a direct correlation between what I started off doing in 1981 at the redress hearings and what I'm still doing today, and that is 01:26:00helping people who have a story to tell, an important story for history and for other fellow Americans to hear, and that somehow they agree to participate in this because of how we've helped them to see that their story is important and make it easy for them, as easy as we could, because it still takes so much courage for them to step up and speak in front of these kinds of public venues. But that is what moves the decision, that could move the decision, is all of their participation. And so I think that that was maybe that helping role that I played at that time is also the same role that I'm playing today. And it's been the mainstay of political decision making in my world.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Can you give a couple quick examples of what you mean by the role you're playing 01:27:00today? Not going super into detail, but a couple of the, the Coastal Commission as well as the Festival of Lanterns.

Kathy Biala:

In both the Feast of Lanterns and also in the Cal Am desalination project, as well as even the downtown-specific plan in which we got an appendix related to Asian architecture in the specific plan, I think in all three of those instances the Asian community played a role in it, that Asians who heretofore had never conceived of themselves as, one, stepping up and voicing an opinion and not even realizing that their testimony, that their words, could actually make a huge 01:28:00impact, that was the thread that helped me to encourage that participation from that time all the way up through all these other things that I've done.

And by myself, I could be the best leader in the world, but if you don't have the people who you're fighting for and advocating for also stepping up, it's really quite meaningless in many cases. It can really make a significant impact if they are involved as well. And so I think we've accomplished that. And as time goes on, these people that hopefully were participating in redress in 1981 have also found that they can do the same kind of activity in many, many other forms like I have. I do think that was the start for me, an organized way of 01:29:00helping people get their voices, of marginalized communities getting their voice.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Beautiful, thank you so much. I think those are all the questions I had, but wanted to leave room for anything else you wanted to share or any final thoughts or reflections.

Also, Matt, do you mind taking a picture of me interviewing her? We're trying to document our process as well. If you don't mind.

Kathy Biala:

Oh, great, great. Yeah.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Yeah. But yeah, any final words you want to end with?

Kathy Biala:

I'm really grateful for this interview. I think you found me, despite the fact that I was Nakamoto, then I was Sasaki, and then now I'm Biala is amazing. And that you found me, let's see, from see Chicago to Baltimore to Fresno to Marina. 01:30:00And there's been other moves in between, but somehow you were able to find me. I think only the younger people know how to track people down in this way, but I'm very grateful because, as you see, my self-reflection about one event has led me to look at the threads in my whole life and to see that there is in fact ties from one experience to the next and it's all really about the same thing, but you don't usually see it that way, because I haven't had the chance to reflect back at my whole life.

And I think that this interview has really done that for me. And I'm surprised, because initially all I could say is that I don't recall anything much about the 1981 hearings. I truly believed that. And now, I'm feeling that there is such a 01:31:00common thread throughout my life and it's pieced together some really important things for me about who I am, but also about how we advance our causes in the future as Asian Americans.

Katherine Nagasawa:

I'm so happy that it was able to kind of connect the dots. I feel like even if some of the minute details have faded, it's clear that you took lessons from that time, that you applied a lot of the same practices. I think that that is what is most interesting to me, beyond -- I'm sure we can look at photos and videos to figure out what it was like in the room or the list of witnesses who testified, but I think the connections that Sansei were able to make in their lives after redress, or what kind of takeaways there were, I think is a question 01:32:00that is not answered yet. And my interview with you just helped really clarify that for at least one person, that it really did shape a lot and inform a lot. So thank you. Yeah.

Kathy Biala:

Yeah, it's been great.

Katherine Nagasawa:

Did you want to take a little bit of time to walk me through some more of the documents and we can look at anything else?

Kathy Biala:

Oh yeah.